B7074 - FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND CORPORATE VALUATIONS FOR NON ACCOUNTANTS

Learning outcomes

At the end of these course (module 1 + module 2), students will: • understand the documents which are part of a full financial disclosure and the related key information they provide; • be capable to go through company’s financial statements; • generally understand corporate reporting practices; • use the main figures and information that can be drawn from a company’s annual report, in order to understand and analyse company's performance, and measure company’s value; • know the main methods of measuring the value of a business; • read and understand a report estimating the value of a company, knowing how to identify its most significant items, as well as its possible criticalities; • know and understand the contents of a company’s "Information memorandum", when referred to a company as a potential investment target.

Course contents

Accounting and Financial reporting are the way companies communicate their performances to the stakeholders. This course analyses different topics that link company performance to financial information at multiple levels.

The course starts with an introduction to fundamental concepts of what kind of financial information are usually reported in a full financial reporting disclosure. Each document will be analyzed in its content to understand structure and detect the key performance indicators (KPI) it contains.

Students will, discover what's behind the numbers in financial statements, such as balance sheets, income statements and Cash flow statements ; will also understand how to read them with support of the Notes and the Management report, so to be able to use the information these documents provide from different perspective.

Starting from financial information the course will analyse the identification of the key information useful for measuring the value of a company and determining the main indicators of its economic performance. Having defined these fundamentals, the main criteria used to measure the value of a business will be reviewed, with particular emphasis on profit and multiples methods, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. The discussion of operational cases will enable students to acquire a right level of sensitivity in the critical analysis of business value assessment reports, and in company valuations in general. In the final session of the course, focus will be made on part of a M&A process, where the "information memorandum" plays usually an important role, being the document aimed at presenting the company as a target to an audience of potential investors, emphasising not only its quantitative information but also to its qualitative contents.

Readings/Bibliography

Course material consists of slides, case studies and course textbooks (see below).

With reference to textbooks, relevant chapters will be indicated at the beginning of the courses.

All teaching material (except for textbooks and academic articles) will be available online at virtuale.unibo.it.

Course textbook:

P. Atrill, E.McLaney. Financial Accounting for Decision. Pearson, (latest edition)

Relevant chapters will be communicated at the beginning of the course

Teaching methods

Lectures, cases, interactive exercises during classes.

The full course (module 1 + module 2) consists of 15 hours per each module, 5 sessions of 3 hours during the 1^st subcycle of the academic year for a total of 30 hours

Assessment methods

Written exams with both multiple choices and open questions

This is the assessment grid: (a) <18 insufficient; (b) 18-23 sufficient; (c) 24-27 average/good; (d) 28-30 very good; (e) 30 cum laude excellent/outstanding.

Three calls per year will be made available on almaesami.unibo.it for Module 1 and Module 2 altogether

Teaching tools

Slides and additional material can be found on virtuale.unibo.it

Office hours

See the website of Monica Romboli

See the website of Fabio Landuzzi